Common Ground

Electronics recyclers do not generally have to look far to find e-mails in their inboxes or news coverage accentuating the differences that can exist within their industry.

Between competing certification systems, differing views on exporting re-usable electronics or contrasting cost-benefit analyses on dismantling versus shredding, the differences are documented on a steady basis.

At the World Recycling Forum, organized by Switzerland's ICM AG and held in Hong Kong in mid-November, several presentations offered hope that some of these differences in the electronics recycling industry are beginning to narrow.
 

EPR Middle Ground
As the head of environmental management for the Asia Pacific and Japan region for Hewlett-Packard (HP), Annukka Dickens has become familiar with many different extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems for obsolete electronics.

In a presentation at the World Recycling Forum, Dickens offered an overview of some of the more common systems as well as the perspective of a large OEM such as HP about what works and what doesn't.

Dickens said centrally managed systems, in which collectors and recyclers are directly subsidized for the obsolete items they handle, are "typically well-intended and work well with technology that is fairly uniform."

However, she added, because electronic scrap can have such a broad definition in some jurisdictions—from refrigerators to cell phones—such programs can end up subsidizing forms of recycling that don't really require the funding.

Dickens also critiqued these systems for rewarding the volume handled by a recycler but not necessarily rewarding efficiency or processing improvements.

Systems managed directly by OEMs can work in some cases, Dickens said, but often break down from a lack of cooperation by OEMs if some feel they are shouldering a greater burden than their competitors.

Dickens then said a "hybrid" model has proven the most effective. In this system, the government "sets objectives, supervises and reviews the reports," she said, but OEMs work with recyclers and collectors to determine how the funds flow through the system.

This hybrid model, Dickens said, is flexible and "lets different products be recycled differently." She said the model is in place in South Korea and has been proposed in Malaysia and in Vietnam.

In such systems, electronic scrap volumes grow, as do profit margins for the best collectors and recyclers, often meaning "there is no need for subsidies long term," she said.

Dickens said she is optimistic that the momentum for incentive-driven electronics recycling will continue to build.

Powered by Incentives
As government mandates push for action, the profit motive produces results. That seemed to be the crux of the message delivered by Joe Yob, business development manager of Creative Recycling Systems, Tampa, Fla.

Laws and regulations can help divert obsolete materials from landfills or prohibit them from being exported, but Yob says legislators and policy makers should understand one truth above all others: "That which gets rewarded gets done."

Yob was part of a panel discussion at the World Recycling Forum. He was joined by former scrap company owner Stephen Greer, now with Oaktree Capital; Michel Dubois of Luxembourg-based Recylux Group; and Professor Li Jinhui of Tsinghua University in Beijing. The members of the panel offered observations on how their industry is evolving in China and the rest of the world.

Yob said Creative Recycling does not ship obsolete electronics to non-OEDC (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, as mandated by the Basel Convention, but also noted that some people in the United States continue to take advantage of the U.S. not being a party to that treaty.

That means Creative "is still at a disadvantage as a recycler/processor competing with people who export trailers to non-OEDC countries," said Yob. "People who don't want to invest the capital to process it are going to export it."

He continued, "If we're going to have extended producer responsibility, the fees collected need to be distributed to the recyclers and to certification organizations like BAN." Yob added, "We want to bring the critics inside, so they can see that what we're doing is done right."

Dubois said the export of electronic scrap from Europe to China "is not very common," as recyclers are aware of the Basel Convention restrictions. Aluminum scrap shipments "with even one [integrated circuit] board in it can be blocked" at a port in Europe, where controls are "very, very strict," said Dubois.

Greer said there had been a spotlight put on Hong Kong's role as a "transfer ground" for electronic scrap heading to China. A representative from the Hong Kong government in attendance said the region's government had been taking action to inspect "about 100 rural sites" in the New Territories of Hong Kong to ensure they meet permit requirements.

Professor Li said the Beijing government has been strengthening its relationship and level of communication between environmental and customs agencies and with Hong Kong's regional government "to try to have uniform action to stop illegal material flows."
 

Sustainable Thinking
Xstrata Copper bills its Horne Smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, Canada, as "the world's largest processor of electronic scrap containing copper and precious metals."

During a session at the World Recycling Forum, Paul Healey of Xstrata outlined how the company has a sustainability plan in place which ideally ensures the surrounding community understands the smelter's role in the recycling loop.

Healey said the Horne Smelter takes "relatively low-grade materials," containing perhaps 20 percent copper, "and upgrades them to 99 percent pure copper, which then goes to our Montreal refinery to become finished product."

Approximately 85 percent of the feedstock for the Horne Smelter consists of copper concentrate that averages about 24 percent copper content, Healey said. The remaining 15 percent of feedstock is electronic scrap and circuit boards, including material that comes from Xstrata Recycling's two facilities in California and Rhode Island.

At the same Forum session, Creative Recycling's Yob provided an update on the progress of the Responsible Recycling Act of 2011 in both houses of Congress.

Known as HR 2284 in the House of Representatives, Yob said the bill had gained bi-partisan support and was supported by companies such as Dell, Apple, HP, Best Buy and "29 large recycling companies."

The legislation, Yob added, "prohibits exports of nontested and nonworking equipment and prohibits shipping shredded material containing certain toxic materials." Yob said the proposed legislation "brings [the United States] somewhat in alignment with the Basel Convention."

The Responsible Recycling Act was being considered in subcommittees in both the House and the Senate, Yob said. He predicted it was likely to undergo changes as it worked its way through both congressional chambers and speculated that phrasing to include rare earth metals recycling within the law's text was one likely addition.

On the operations side, Rainer Koehnlechner of Germany's Hamos GmbH provided an overview of his company's methods to address the recycling of mixed plastics created by the shredding of a mixed obsolete electronics stream.

He noted consumers and office products companies use some 60 types of polymers but that a sorting system can concentrate on polystyrene (PS, including HIPS, or high-impact polystyrene), ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) and polypropylene (PP) plastics.

Since black is a predominant color used in electronics, infrared and other optical sorting techniques face limitations, said Koehnlechner. Hamos, thus, has focused on "a combination of wet and dry technologies" to separate plastic pieces based on their density. Density technology also can ferret out glass and metal contaminants in the stream.

Because a post-shredded stream also will contain wood and elastomeric rubber contaminants, Hamos systems also separate materials based on their electro-static charge acceptance, he said.

The result, Koehnlechner said, can be ABS and PS streams with 98.5 percent purity and "no flame retardants" that can be "sold to both compounder and dealers to go directly into new products."

The author is editorial director of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.